Program aims for shorter foster-care time

The four children whom Amy Sather and her husband adopted last November spent three years in foster care before finding a permanent home with her.

The road to adoption will likely be much shorter for the foster child who moved into the family's Phoenix home soon after his birth in January.

That's due in large part to a new Maricopa County program called Cradle to Crayons, a broad effort to move children younger than 3 years old through the foster-care system more quickly while focusing greater attention on their developmental needs and the rehabilitation of their parents.

Babies and small children are the most vulnerable to abuse and neglect, and they make up more than half of all children in foster care. They're also less likely to be reunited with their parents than older kids and more likely to return to foster care after being sent home.

The trauma of child abuse and neglect, and being moved from place to place at such a young age, jeopardizes children's ability to form a healthy attachment to a single caregiver. That can damage normal growth and development and, down the road, the child's own parenting skills.

The idea behind Cradle to Crayons -- patterned after a small, intensive program at Tulane University in New Orleans -- is to provide therapy, "coached" parent-child visits and other services sooner and more frequently for children and their parents so that judges, Child Protective Services case managers, attorneys and treatment providers can make better-informed decisions about their future as a family.

Parents of hundreds of the youngest foster kids already make more frequent appearances before three juvenile-court judges who specialize in these cases. Once it's fully funded later this year, the program will consolidate an array of programs at a new child-welfare center to help families in their efforts to overcome the issues that broke them apart.

"We are trying to repair any types of hurt that the parent went through to put them in a position where they can safely parent their children," said Julie Larrieu, associate director of the Tulane Infant Team and a professor of clinical psychology and pediatrics at the university's School of Medicine. "But there also needs to be a realistic time frame."

Arizona law allows children younger than 3 years old to be free for adoption within six months of coming into foster care. But the state can't terminate parental rights until it shows parents had the opportunity to fix the problems that brought their children into state custody.

Maricopa County's child-welfare center will be a central location for visitation, therapy, substance-abuse treatment and early education. The three-building center, scheduled to open this summer, is housed in a former juvenile drug-treatment facility down the street from the Durango Juvenile Court Center in Phoenix.

Maricopa County Presiding Juvenile Court Judge Edd Ballinger, a chief proponent of the program, said young children and their families need more attention from judges to reduce bureaucratic delays and enforce treatment, visitation and other court orders.

Tulane's program has been shown to reduce future child maltreatment. Parenting skills improve, Larrieu said, even among parents who lose their children.

"We have not been doing a good enough job. We have a problem that's getting much worse," Ballinger said. "Part of this is about dealing with the next child she has."

Under Cradle to Crayons, Judges Aimee Anderson and Brian Ishikawa and Commissioner Joan Sinclair only hear cases of children younger than 3 years old and their siblings. They completed special training in early-childhood development and agreed to remain on the bench beyond the typical two-year rotation.

Judge Connie Contes is scheduled to join the team next month. The goal is to eventually have eight judges in the program.

The court is asking the County Board of Supervisors for $2 million to fund Cradle to Crayons for the first two years. The county also has applied for two federal grants, worth a total of $650,000, and plans to raise private funds.

A proposed Arizona State University partnership would provide interns to augment staff, and the long-term plan includes centers in Mesa and downtown Phoenix.

While one of the goals is to get babies and small children through the foster-care system more quickly, results of Tulane's Infant Team, which began in 1984, show no reduction in the length of time in care as a result of the program.

The Tulane program resulted in fewer children returning to the system, but fewer children went home to their birth families. Larrieu said that's partly because parents were expected to make "clinically significant progress," not just show up.

Attorneys and child advocates worry that, without better access to mental-health treatment and other services, the rush to sever parent-child relationships will result in little more than broken families.

But Ballinger said more frequent court hearings and the child-welfare center's comprehensive services will help parents -- generally single mothers -- who are willing to participate. For those who aren't willing, he acknowledged, that will likely mean a quicker end to their legal right to raise their child.

"Does she have a shot?" the judge said. "That's what we want to know."